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Swindon Writing III Launch Party and Author Copy!

Harriet Phoenix
The books are unveiled by Zoe and Katie, two of Swindon Writing‘s editors and contributors

I’m happy to announce that, as part of this year’s Swindon Festival of Literature, the third edition of Swindon Writing has now been launched!

Yes, I know. Fair to say, Swindon has the kind of reputation that might make some people surprised that we have a Festival of Literature, never mind enough local writers to fill one anthology, let alone three. As Matt Holland, the Festival’s founder, is fond of telling people, when trying to launch the Festival in the first place he had to struggle against the attitude that most Swindonians were unable to spell “literature.”

Festival founder Matt Holland is honoured in a speech by editor and contributor Elliot

Well, just to prove how wrong preconceptions can be, the Swindon Writing project picks up momentum with each new edition, with this latest edition receiving over a hundred entries. That’s a huge improvement on when we started out with the first ever Swindon Writing, way back in the ancient mists of pre-Covid times. This is one project I’m happy to have contributed to since day one.

(They did shoot down my title pitch of Swindon: We’re All Cultured Now, but hey.)

After the contributing authors received our author copy, some of us read our stories out to the gathering. I’m happy to say that my entry, “Fast Times at the Hook a Duck,” was greatly enjoyed! It is always nice to make people laugh, especially when what you’re reading is, in fact, meant to be funny.

So that’s my news for now! Swindon Writing III is officially launched and available via the Swindon Festival of Literature website. In addition to featuring the work of Swindon-based authors, it also features a cover design by a Swindon artist (I know! We have those as well!).

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Unpopular Punctuation: Colons and Semicolons

Harriet Phoenix

My GCSE English teacher had many fun little quirks, one being that he hated semicolons with a fiery vengeance. He considered them useless articles, easily and better replaced with other forms of punctuation.

Did anyone else have this? A teacher who just sort of religiously took against a random feature of the language? He was pretty good-humoured about it, but still. That’s weird, and I’m saying that.

I, however, use them all the time. Okay, partly because I formed a habit in response to the above just to be contrary; fair comment. However, the semicolon wouldn’t exist if it didn’t serve a purpose, so let’s dive in.

A semicolon is effectively a “super-comma” used to link two complete, but closely related sentences as if they were clauses in one complex sentence, just like I did in the preceding paragraph. “… just to be contrary,” and “fair comment,” are sentences in themselves, and I used a semicolon to smush them together into one. A comma won’t work, because they only join sentence clauses, not sentences.

Basically, when a comma doesn’t feel like enough but a full stop feels too much, throw a semicolon in there and see if that works.

Now, my former teacher probably would have told me to just make them separate sentences, but I feel that a full stop would create a full-stop-level break in the rhythm that I don’t want there. Other alternatives, such as ending the first sentence and beginning the next with a connective word, like “however…” or “because…” clearly wouldn’t work there. A semicolon does.

If a semicolon is a super-comma, then the super-semicolon is… uh… a colon. Colons are mainly used to end a complete sentence and introduce something else: the basic difference between this and a semicolon is that a semicolon links two complete sentences, whereas what follows a colon is dependant on what came before to make sense. Like just there, where using the word “this” makes what comes after the colon a sentence fragment without the part before the colon. If I’d instead written, “the basic difference between a colon and a semicolon…” then that would be a complete sentence and would have to be preceded by a semicolon. Confused yet? Great!

Colons are also used to introduce a list, with the list items separated by commas (e.g. the countries of the UK are: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales). However, where a comma is already in use the semicolon can once again step up as a super-comma to clarify things with an additional degree of separation. For example:

My favourite sci fi novels include: The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams; The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers; Trading in Danger, Elizabeth Moon; The Martian, Andy Weir; Earth Girl, Janet Edwards; and Leviathan’s Wake, James S.A. Corey.

(List is in no way comprehensive.)

Yes, I know; I could have used “by” instead of the commas and then commas instead of semicolons. Whatever, it’s just an example. The point is; far from being useless, the semicolon has specific uses, and gives you some flexibility in how you express yourself. It’s where the rising comma meets the falling full stop. Embrace it.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Finding Competitions to Enter

Harriet Phoenix

Once you’ve finished your story, poem, creative non-fiction or whatever variety of brain-baby you make, and you’ve made it all shiny and nice, you’ll probably want to try and publish it somewhere. Entering your work into writing competitions is a pretty good way to do this, but where do you find them? Here’s my non-comprehensive list of places to try:

Writing magazines! You ARE subscribed to at least one, right? If not, sign up to one right now (or, if budget is an issue, stop by your local library and see if they have any. If they don’t, find a librarian and ask if they’d consider signing up. And then write to your MP, governor or whoever is in charge of these things in your area about keeping libraries open). Seriously, every writer should be receiving at least one writing magazine for inspiration and information. Also, as well as running competitions themselves, any writing magazine worth reading will have a section where writing competitions and publication opportunities of all kinds are listed, often by writing form and genre. Chances are, you’ll be able to find something there that works for you.

Alternatively, there’s the standby: just Google it (using the search engine of your choice; other options are available). Plenty of literary sites list competitions, so hunt around, bookmark a few you like and check them on the regular. Throw in “writing competitions” whenever you’ve got a few minutes and see what you can find.

Of course, any publisher or other entity who have run a competition that has interested you in the past is worth checking again, even if you didn’t end up submitting or your entry didn’t make the cut. If they ran one competition that felt like your thing, chances are they’ll run another at some point, so keep a list somewhere and drop in every month or so just in case.

Obviously, once you’ve found a few competitions you like the look of you’ll want to do an organised-person thing, like make a note of it somewhere so you don’t forget and miss the deadline. I have a spreadsheet for competitions I intend to enter (for someone who doesn’t like spreadsheets very much, I do seem to have a lot of them), with columns for things like competition title, wordcount range, deadline, publisher and a hyperlink. If you’re like me and getting organised is tricky for you, then taking an hour or so to throw something like that together can save infinite headaches for Future You.

So, that’s my incomplete list of places to start your search for competitions to enter. I’ve undoubtedly missed something, but hopefully I’ve given you a few good places to start. Have fun with whatever competitions you choose to enter! Coming soon: How to Deal with Rejection!

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Cover Letters

Harriet Phoenix

Another nuts-and-bolts column today. Loathe ‘em or hate ‘em, cover letters are a necessary part of submitting your writing absolutely anywhere, so hold hands and take a deep breath: let’s get this over with.

Most creative work is submitted electronically these days, so your cover letter will likely be copy-pasted into an online form, or the body text of an email with your story attached.

While the quality of your submitted work is most important, you should assume your cover letter will have a bearing on your submission’s chances; this ties back to a previous column about making life easy for whoever deals with your submission. Your cover letter is where you tell them what you’re sending and what you expect them to do with it. That might seem obvious, but imagine being the person trying to sort hundreds of incoming entries for five different competitions. They’ve probably set submission guidelines to tell you exactly which information they want from you, so read those and follow them carefully.

Your cover letter has different requirements depending on what kind of creative work you’re submitting. If it’s part of a greater project, such as an anthology or a magazine, then keep your letter short; greet the editor by name if you know it or “Dear Editor” if you don’t. In your first paragraph, tell them the name of your entry, the genre or subgenre and the wordcount. The next paragraph should be an author bio if they’ve asked for one; if not, assume they’ll ask if your piece is accepted. Then thank them for their consideration and sign off. That’s it; remember that hypothetical person with hundreds of these to go through, and don’t waste their time.

A cover letter for a novel is different. It’s an introduction to someone with whom you hope to forge an intense and prolonged business relationship; the investment of time and resources in a debut novel is immense, and the agent or publisher you’re reaching out to needs to know who they’re dealing with. Where a cover letter for a short piece needs to be to the point, this kind requires you to take your time and elaborate.

When I attended the Stockholm Writers Festival in August, I got to discuss the submission process with Liv Maidment of the Madeleine Milburn Agency, who told me a cover letter for a novel should be written “as if the person reading it will be fed up and hung over.” Going too formal is a mistake; you’re giving this person an idea of what the next few years will be like if they choose to invest in you. Don’t obscure your personality; try and cast yourself in a fun and friendly (but still professional!) light.

(It’s worth noting that I didn’t realise any of this when I was submitting my first novel and went ridiculously formal, which is maybe why no one went for that one. Maybe.)

For the same reason, don’t copy-paste this one. Personalise it. Mention why you’ve chosen this agency, this agent, in particular (“I wrote a book and you do books” isn’t it). For example, if I were to submit a work to Liv Maidment, I would definitely mention having spoken to her at a festival. If you’re a fan of one of their authors, say so, especially if you think it has a bearing on the work you’re submitting. Also; talk about your influences. Which existing authors would your work share a table display with? Pick someone well-known and recent.

So, that’s cover letters. I’ll try and do something fun next time, I promise.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Fanfic: Yea or Nay?

Harriet Phoenix

Okay, cards on the table; this column felt like a piece of harmless fun when I picked it, and now that feels like a mistake, because there are a lot of opinions out there on the subject of fanfic and whether or not it’s artistically valid or even morally acceptable.

Some of these opinions come from some very high-profile authors, such as Anne Rice, who has stated that “It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters,” or George R.R. Martin, who “[doesn’t] wanna read it and I would not encourage people to write it.” Diana Gabaldon colourfully expressed the desire to “barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.”

Clearly, emotions run high when fanfic is under discussion.

And yet, AO3 processes 6 000 invitations per day. That’s the population of a village seeking an account from which to post or view fanfic, every day. That’s an awful lot of people for the folks mentioned above to be annoyed with.

On the other side of the fence, Neil Gaiman has stated that “all writing is useful for honing writing skills. I think you get better as a writer by writing.” Meg Cabot concurs; “I think writing fan fiction is a good way for new writers to learn to tell a story.”

Me personally – and I’d like to state for the record that this is JUST AN OPINION, DON’T SHOOT – I do find fanfiction artistically valid, although I can definitely see why others would feel differently. For one thing, I have no idea what it would be like to come across fanfic involving my own work. I imagine I’d be blown away at the idea that something I’d written had made such an impact on someone, but I don’t know that. I can also imagine wanting to avoid such works wherever possible, for the usual legal reasons and to avoid my vision getting tangled with someone else’s. But its actual existence means someone really engaged with your work, and isn’t that what we’re going for?

Finally, writing fanfic is fun. Let’s face it, writing can be tough. It’s not something anyone does because it’s easy, it’s something we do because we love it, and if you want to be able to maintain your writing then it’s important to keep touch with the fun.

I’ve made no secret lately that I’ve been struggling. Covid took a baseball bat to my immune system in the spring, I keep getting annoying little bugs and my brain keeps getting stuck on low-power mode. None of this is making it easy to keep writing, but I’ve found that if I take a break, it becomes even harder to start again. I tend to side with Gaiman and Cabot on this topic, because one way I’ve found to work with my brain is to write fanfic. It’s fun, there’s very little pressure which makes it easier, and best of all it keeps me writing.

Just, y’know, don’t expect it to advance your professional writing career or anything. I hear the copyright holders can get snippy about that sort of thing.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Characterisation: Why Your Character Needs To Suck

Harriet Phoenix

Here’s a fun fact; we don’t actually read fiction for entertainment. That’s just the lure that draws us in. But what keeps us drawn in is the chance to learn a little about those baffling mysteries of the universe: other people.

Whether it’s couched in wizards, spies or spaceship battles, a story is basically an account of how a character changes. How they overcome a flaw, or, if it’s a tragedy, how they fail to overcome it and bear the consequences. Interpreting how other people operate is one of the hardest and most important things our brains do; anything that lets us rack up a few more experience points can’t be ignored. That’s why a good story stays with us long after we’ve finished, and why cliffhangers keep us coming back; we need to know what happens, so we can add that information to the big database called “Other People: What’s Up with That?”

Of course, for that to work, your characters need to have a flaw. That’s why, whenever people complain about a book or film that “didn’t work,” it often comes back to the main character being a Mary Sue. As well as being annoying, Mary Sues have no flaw to overcome, so any story featuring one is going to turn out a little pointless no matter how many cool sword fights you throw in.

So, your character needs a flaw if we’re going to be interested in what happens to them. No decent character can be summed up in a short column, but to make a compelling personality you’ll definitely need to answer these three questions:

What’s wrong with them? How did they get like that? And how do they overcome it?

Their flaw can’t just be something you picked off a list and which has nothing to do with the story. Their flaw is the story. If we’re going to care, we need to see how it screws up their lives.

Maybe they find it impossible to form connections with anyone because they don’t trust other people. We need to see the friends they’ve driven away, the relationships they’ve ruined. We need to feel the loneliness they insist is preferable to leaving themselves vulnerable by letting other people in.

About that vulnerability… we need to understand what they’re afraid of. How did they get that way? Whose betrayal hurt them so badly? This is sometimes called a “Shard of Glass.”

Imagine your character was impaled on broken glass at some point, and a shard remained inside the wound (the betrayal). That shard continues to stab them from within (the mistrustful behaviour that damages their present relationships). Until that shard is removed, they won’t be able to heal (form rewarding relationships based on trust).

Understanding where your character’s shard of glass came from is vital for the payoff, when their emotional journey results in the conquering of that flaw.

news, Science Fiction

My Space Brides LLC Author Copy is Here!

Harriet Phoenix

It’s nice to close out the month with some good news, and luckily I have some! My author copy of Space Brides LLC has arrived! You long-time readers know how much I love this part!

Can I take a moment to enjoy a couple of things? First of all, look at that gorgeous cover. The bride in her flowing gown and that neat little bouquet, set against the backdrop of space… that is beautiful. Secondly, my story, which I had a lot of fun writing, is mentioned in the blurb. It’s a bit of a strange story that explores what marriage might mean in a society drastically different from our own, and I’m more than happy with the result. Ever want to visit a place you created in your mind?

There are plenty of other contributors besides myself, of course. I haven’t read all of them yet, but the ones I have read are brilliant. They’ve all done such different things with the concept, and results are touching, epic, funny and – of course – romantic.

Space Brides LLC is a short science fiction anthology by Wolf Singer Publications. It’s due out on December 5th, and available for pre-order as an ePub or paperback direct from the publisher, where you can use the code NR2023 to save 15%. Alternatively, find it in ePub form from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. So if you have a person in your life who enjoys fun and quirky science fiction, consider grabbing them a copy for whatever upcoming holiday you prefer!

news, Science Fiction

Space Brides Blurb and Cover Art!

Harriet Phoenix

Today I’m happy to announce that the upcoming Wolf Singer Publications anthology Space Brides is slated for a December release! I’ve seen the proofs and can now happily share with you the final cover art!

Prompts can be funny things. I’d usually be put off by a prompt as specific as this one, but somehow the idea of a matchmaking agency that serves a spacefaring humanity as it spreads through the solar system worked for me. It sent my brain to a fairly weird place as I tried to imagine the ways marriage might evolve in such a setting. I had a lot of fun writing my entry, Runaway Bride, and I’m so happy it was accepted.

If a diverse cast of science fiction characters finding love in strange new places sounds like something you ‘d be interested in, then please keep an eye on this site! I’ll be posting updates as I get them.

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Writing Advice: What You Think You Wrote vs. What You Actually Wrote: Why You Need Beta Readers

Harriet Phoenix

It’s a common question among new writers: do I really need to get a second opinion on my writing before I submit it anywhere?

Yes. Yes you do.

Even if you’re a professional proofreader or editor, you still need someone else to glance over your baby to tell you what is and isn’t working. Maybe you love that comedy character… but he adds nothing to the plot and yanks the reader out of the story. This passage might be some of your best writing… but it jars with the rest and screws up the theme of your story. That fountain you described in loving detail is a colourful piece of scene-setting… but the way you brought it up implies someone’s getting pushed in, which leaves your readers feeling cheated when no one does. You probably won’t spot these things. You need people to tell you.

I recently finished a short story for a competition and sent it off to a couple of University friends for their opinions. They both liked it, but one had questions about a particular object the main character obtained partway through; what happened to it?

Now, I was perfectly clear on when and how the object gets lost. Somehow, though, that information wandered off between my brain and my fingers and didn’t make it onto the page. Like the object in the story, it just sort of disappeared.

Beta readers are also the perfect person to tell you about shortcomings in your own writing that might not be obvious to you because you’re the one who wrote it. Most writers habitually do some niggling thing, like overusing a particular word (for me it’s “little”). Then there are more general mistakes, like typing errors resulting in a different, wrong word that you’re spellcheck doesn’t pick up but your readers probably will.

Things like that can become distracting for a reader, make your work seem sloppy, and potentially be the One Thing that makes an editor choose a different story. That’s why you really need someone to spot them for you.

(Incidentally, did you see what I did there? My spellchecker didn’t. The trouble with spellcheckers is that I’m pretty sure they’re programmed by computer nerds, not English nerds. Just know that it physically pains me to leave that in there.)

You know your story (hopefully) inside and out. You know why that person’s upset with your character and why that bracelet’s important. And that’s great, but it’s also the problem; you know exactly what you intended to write, and that can make you miss what you actually did write.

Good beta readers can improve things in ways you flat-out didn’t see coming. I recently shared a few chapters of a fanfic with a friend. The feedback I got was mostly positive, but the best thing was a prediction she made which was… not at all what I was going for. The way I’d written something foreshadowed things I hadn’t intended.

Here’s the thing, though; her prediction was better than what I’d planned. Much better. My original plan would’ve foreshadowed things that didn’t happen, and been pretty dull in comparison. Instead I ended up rewriting a couple of upcoming chapters I’d half-written, and it was great. All thanks to beta reading.

A beta reader goes into a story with no idea what you were trying to do, which makes them the perfect person to tell you without preconceptions what does and does not come across. You are literally the only person in the world who can’t do this.

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A Review of Terrors from the Toybox!

Harriet Phoenix

Phobica Books have posted on their Facebook page that a review on Terrors from the Toybox has been posted by Alpha’s Court! Check it out here.

Just looking at their main page, it looks like Alpha’s Court really know their horror. That’s why I’m so flattered to have an entire paragraph of their review devoted to ‘Enid’s Dollhouse’ and how “absolutely terrifying” it is! Three of Toybox‘s authors have been given a spotlight and I’m thrilled to be one of them.

I horrified someone! I’m so proud!